Gardener Born
by Grav
Summary: Samwise Gamgee was gardener born.


AN: I wrote this on the plane on the way home for Christmas. It just kind of appeared on the page. I love it when that happens. I've never tried writing Sam before. I don't think it's half bad.

This, in a dramatic break with tradition, is entirely bookverse.

Rating: Kid Friendly

Disclaimer: I write the story but the ideas are all in the head of the Professor and none of them are mine.

Summary: Samwise Gamgee was gardener born.

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**Gardener Born**

Samwise Gamgee was gardener born. When he was but a baby, his mother and sisters hung flowers on his cradle and the gaffer made him a rattler out of dried peas in a carefully hollowed out and dried potato.

Sam learned to crawl when he was two. This was late for a hobbitchild, and the gaffer was afraid that there was something wrong with his Sam-lad. Two days after Sam learned to crawl, the gaffer pulled him out of the flour barrel and lamented that his son would never learn to sit still.

With crawling came exploration. Daisy howled, asking how she was supposed to learn to cook with a baby underfoot. Her mother and the gaffer laughed so hard, he stamping his foot on the floor, that the cake fell flat. The next day, Sam was taken outside.

Thus Sam found the gardens of Bag End. He was at just the right level to see everything perfectly; each blossom, leaf and twig. Once, after a sudden rain washed out the upper tiers, he saw the exposed roots and his fascination was born anew. Hobbits, after all, only grew up. Plants grew up and down.

His mother only sighed when the gaffer brought him home covered toe to tail with dirt, and then set him in the wash tub. At dinner, while Sam learned to eat potatoes, the gaffer said _Well my lad, when you can walk you'll have more work to do in the garden_.

Sam learned to walk before he turned three. He would trot back and forth through the gardens carrying tools for the gaffer. One day, when he was pulling along a hoe for the potatoes that was too big for him to lift, he tripped on a pair of feet he hadn't noticed in time to avoid.

Sam looked up and saw a hobbit he had heard a great deal about. _Mad Baggins_, folk called him, but the gaffer always said that Mr. Baggins was the best employer he'd ever had and had always treated the family well.

"You'll be Sam, then?" Mr. Baggins said. Sam nodded. "A fine lad to help you father already." Sam blushed. "Perhaps with tools your own size, gardening would be easier."

That September, after Sam turned four, Mr. Bilbo had a birthday. He gave Sam a package and watched with great seriousness as it was opened. Inside there was a tiny set of gardening tools, a hoe and a spade and a rake and even clippers, all the perfect size for Sam. Dwarf-made, though the lad didn't know it, the tools would neither bend nor break nor rust. Sam could say no word of thanks until the gaffer reminded him sharply, but Mr. Baggins knew that his gift was well received.

Spring followed spring and when Sam was eight, another Mr. Baggins came to live at Bag End. _You had better call me Mr. Bilbo now_ Mr. Baggins had said. _It will be less confusing_. And so Sam did. He liked Mr. Frodo very much. The older lad would often sit in the garden and read while Sam worked, sharing stories or showing him the pictures. One book in particular, _Flowers of the Shire_, was his favourite.

One day it rained and Sam came to water the indoor planters. The flower book was on the table in the library and he couldn't help but take a look.

"Do you know how the flowers got their names, Sam?" Mr. Bilbo asked. Sam started and nearly dropped the watering can.

"No, Mr. Bilbo."

"Neither do I." Bilbo said with a smile. "I haven't read this book yet. Come, get the stool and we'll read it together."

The rain turned to snow as they read, and all through the winter, Sam sat with Mr. Bilbo in the library and learned the letters of the flowers. They each had many names, it turned out, depending on which Folk were naming them. But of all the names, the Elvish ones were always Sam's favourite.

For Sam learned about the Elves that winter too, every story that Bilbo could tell him. Mr. Frodo often listened with him, and sometimes Mr. Bilbo would teach Frodo the Elvish tongue. The flower names were good enough for Sam though. The gaffer didn't hold with foreign fancy, though he did concede that Sam's potatoes were well grown in spite of his lettering and Marigold liked to hear bed time stories about the pretty Elven maids.

As Sam grew older and the gaffer grew more rheumatic, more of the gardening fell to him. He put aside his child-sized tools and worked hard and the gardens of Bag End were the finest in the Shire. When news spread of the sale to the Sackville-Bagginses, Old Will Whitfoot's first complaint was to the loss of prestige to Hobbiton's greenery. For surely Lobelia wouldn't spend her money on the garden.

And then Frodo disappeared and Sam went with him and before the hobbits had quite done discussing that, Men came to the Shire and then there was no more time for flowers.

When Sam came home, he gardened on a larger scale that he had ever dreamed possible. The whole of the Shire needed him, and by the time he got to Bag End proper, the dirt that Galadriel had given him was spent on the trees.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Frodo." Sam said with tears in his eyes as he looked at the ruin Saruman had brought to Bag End.

"My dear Sam," said Frodo with a smile on his face. "You've been coaxing flowers from the earth here longer than I've known you."

"That's true enough." Sam said. "I suppose it's time to stop looking up at the Elves and start looking back at the ground."

And so Sam gardened in the way he'd been taught. And he discovered that hobbits put in roots too, as sure as plants did. The difference was only that an uprooted plant died and uprooted hobbits sought new soil for planting.

When Frodo-lad was three, Samwise decided that it was time he stop playing in the dirt with his hands and on his birthday, he gave the long treasured miniature tool set to his son.

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**finis**

GravityNotIncluded, December 21, 2006


End file.
